Collateral Extinction
Lincolnshire, IL
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
Collateral Extinction
(Vaquita- a cetacean species that is classified as critically endangered due to Totoaba overfishing and has a population count of 8)
75 to 199 million tons
of plastic in the water. I was born to paint the ocean so I dipped my fin
into memories of mother in clear lagoons with corals the shade of sunset
and smeared polyethylene across my eyes. I tried to mix blue, commercial fisheries churning
waves into camouflaged mud, anything that moves holds a price tag. Bloodless meat. Muted metal the color of oil sheen. Shadows casted when I was born into waters that don’t speak, but
kissed me with frantic survival
while my pod kissed death with fishnet lips. The ink of textbooks bleed
Vaquita, little cow of the Gulfs, in one ear and out the other. Brain-rot,
california gills are all too forgettable. I graze
strangulation with dark-ringed eyes, lattice meant for totoaba in swim bladders.
1985, they found the Titanic, a tragic 700 survivors while my eyes counted 600
heads beneath the new endangered label slapped over “least concerned”. Kindergarten children learn to count on small fingers in 2025 while I slip beneath the bar, you can count to ten
on two hands and extinction on two knuckles less. Gen Z learns about climate change
like the weather forecast for 8am on an overcast Monday morning, I drink
acid rain. overturned plastic umbrellas. pour it, over me. A mourning shroud
I wear to the wedding vow. White,
the ocean is full of vanishings: bleach for the corals to substitute
the poles once imprinted with footsteps of arctic life. Temperature curves
the spine of jellyfish choked by turtles turned plastic bags. Sea levels clink glasses like a scythe’s arc of champagne—to death counts and prosperity. May your blood run thicker than water
on land. but blood dilutes the bones you carry salt from when we shared a womb in floods. Noah’s ark, my species ascends down the wooden steps. I don’t remember
cousins, siblings, mother
they laced the sea with filament, nylon webs spun by factories, human nature
not instinct, your mesh bites dorsals in diamonds. Vortex of overconsumption, how rare.
It holds me, cradle of heaven, mechanized hands playing god. Ruler of the sea, rain just tears
of the sky, it falls
strange. In wrappers labeled pure water bottles, was that a promise?
It collects in the hollows of my skull, sweet nothings whispered in lullabies to lull
me asleep. I gargle with history and try not to swallow.
Even the barnacles look away.
Reflection
Reflection
I initially saw the Vaquita when researching for a biology project. When I went online, curious about the animal’s unique features, my jaw literally dropped upon looking at the single-digit number for the current population count of the tiny porpoise. I felt a sense of urgency for an animal that was hundreds of miles away, and knew then that this was the animal I would do my project on, and ultimately the inspiration behind this poem. I utilized the contest theme of "looking inside, going outside" by placing the spoken word in the actual internal dialogue of a endangered species, and learned that there are many human actions that result in a multitude of unintended side effects—the butterfly effect, if you will—that seem minute initially but can mean the world to another life. In the case of the Vaquita, the reason for such low population counts is actually due to the black market's demand for Totoaba swim bladders, another marine fish, and the gillnets used to hunt said Totoaba strangles the Vaquita within 2 minutes of being caught. Thus, my message to the viewers of "Collateral Extinction" would be to urge them to learn about endangered species—not just the Vaquita—and take action before it’s too late, because if not the next generations may become the generation that will only know of such animals through textbooks, without ever going outside and being able to see them.